HoodedHawk

This week guys from our board game group played Eclipse; it was the first time for the 5 of us who played. OK! I now have a new favorite game. I’ll review it more later, but suffice it to say that even though after 4 hours we called it (only ~halfway through; 4 of 9 rounds), it felt like less than an hour had gone by!

Initially the game looks forbidding, as it has something like 900 pieces. However the rules are straightforward and very easy to follow. The game pieces are designed so well that after awhile you can pick up a new one and the basics of what it does without reading. Some of the mechanics are like Through the Ages, which works for me. Combat rules are simple, but fun. Not a lot of downtime in the game. The review linked above has a lot more detail.

Now I wonder how I can get Dylan to play this with me on vacation next week? I think he will like it, as it has the territory building and dice/combat aspect he can relate to (ala Risk). No, this game is really nothing like Risk. But I can use it as a comparison for Dylan as Risk is one of his favs. :)

A few weeks ago our board game group played “Conquest of Empire“; a remake of a “classic” game from 1984. This definitely required a lot of space! Fun game, though after ~4 hours we called it without completing. I didn’t win. I had fun, though! :)

Dylan and I played another round of Power Grid: First Sparks tonight. This is a fun game I picked up last week; third time playing. Some of the mechanics are similar to the regular “Power Grid” game, but overall this is “Power Grid light”, playing in an hour or less. One significant change is the removal of bidding for technology (power plants in the regular game).

My first play was with Dylan, and I (barely) won. This play he trounced me. I placed my initial clans too far to one end of the (elongated this time) “board”, and ended up where each turn I could only feed the clans I had, but had no resources left to expand or buy new “technology” to get more resources. At that point Dylan placed 5 clans to end the game and win. Hmmm. I do like this game. Only took about an hour.

Next time, better starting position! The board changes each game, as board tiles are chosen randomly and placed by players in turn to form the playing area. The previous games were more “square” than tonight’s “elongated” one. Tonight was tough for me due to poor initial placement on my part. Dylan was able to put some obstacles in my path (clans) making expansion more expensive. I keep underestimating his ability for strategic play in these games! Also, this time we correctly refilled the resources (harvest), so didn’t run out of bears or mammoths. Fun game!

Recently at our weekly board game night we played a quick game of Tongiaki. It’s a semi-cooperative tile (and boat) laying game. You basically try to grow your population and move to as many new islands as possible. Each tile laid has a number of beaches, and each beach has a certain number of berths for boats. Once a beach is full, those boats must sail for new territory. This gets tricky, because if the next tile drawn is a water tile, and there are fewer different colors of boats than the number on the tile, the all the boats are lost. This means you do want to mix up colors (players), just in case.

When the last tile (of either water or island) is placed (there are 16 of each), the game ends. You add up the points for islands you have a boat on – most points wins. Fun, if sometimes frustrating (all my boats sank due to water tile!) game.

Board Game night last night. Got in a few games, including Lancaster (below). I do like Lancaster, but we’ve played it a number of times now and I’m liking it a wee bit less. Usually coming in last might have something to do with it :) Actually, I’m not really competitive; I just enjoy playing. Waiting to get in another game of Through The Ages…